The roles of the internet in reconfigering maggies in australia, USA and UK

Online Survey Samples We obtained samples of married couples through online panels in the UK and Australia and a sample of married individuals through an online panel in the US.. Throug

Mate Selection in the Network Society:

The Role of the Internet in Reconfiguring Marriages in Australia, the United Kingdom and United States A

William H Dutton, Ellen J Helsper and Monica T Whitty

Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

and

J Galen Buckwalter and Erina Lee

eHarmony LabsTM

The Internet has the potential to change our lives for better or worse by

reconfiguring social networks, ranging from creating an expanded set of weak ties to introducing people to their next best friend or spouse Cyberspace is not the utopian playfield some portrayed it to be (Rheingold 1994) While many increasingly look to the Internet as a place to meet people, others fear

undesirable or unwanted approaches in chat rooms or over social networks Nonetheless, there is evidence that a considerable number of people are

meeting new people online and that they sometimes move on to meet up face This is evident in the degree that online dating sites have spawned a

face-to-burgeoning new industry

A This working paper was prepared for discussion at a forum, entitled ‘Meeting, Dating, Marriage and the Internet’, held at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 3 October 2008 The research was supported by a grant from eHarmony, a US based online match-making company supporting research on

What will be the societal implications of an increasing number of people making friends and possibly establishing intimate relationships online? This paper seeks

to address this question through an analysis of survey research data gathered as part of the ‘Me, My Spouse and the Internet’ project at the Oxford Internet

Institute, supported by eHarmony This study collected in Britain and Australia enables us to address key questions related to the prevalence and patterns of Internet-enabled meeting and marriage When possible, we draw comparisons with other survey data on online relationships, such as from a survey on recently married individuals in the United States It draws also from general population data collected by the Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS), as discussed below

Reconfiguring Relationships

Theoretical assumptions underpinning many discussions of online relationships have tended to be technologically deterministic, and focused on the role of the Internet in reducing or enhancing social networks (Rice et al 2007) The question most often posed is whether or not the Internet will tend to isolate people or extend their social networks Generally, survey research has failed to find a consistent relationship between Internet use and social relationships If anything, those online have tended to be somewhat more sociable, despite early

stereotypes of the isolated computer nerd (Rice et al 2007) Our research has moved away from this focus on more or less connectivity to explore the degree to

which people use the Internet to make new friends and, thereby, reconfigure their social networks.1

For example, bi-annual surveys of use and non-use of the Internet in Britain have examined those who create new ties through the Internet and under what

conditions these online ties migrate to face to face settings (Dutton and Helsper 2007) These analyses are based on data from the 2005 and 2007 Oxford

Internet Surveys (OxIS), each of which is based on a national probability sample survey of individuals aged 14 and over in Britain

Figure 1 Meeting People Online

Source: OxIS (Dutton & Helsper, 2007)

The Oxford Internet Surveys (OxIS) showed, for example, that in 2007, almost a quarter of Internet users (23%) had met someone online who they did not know before This is up from 20 percent in 2005 (Figure 1) Not only did Internet users

meet new friends online, about half of these individuals have gone on to meet one or more of these virtual friends in person (di Gennaro and Dutton 2007; Dutton and Helsper 2007) These findings suggest that the Internet plays an important role in reconfiguring the social networks of many users

Socio-demographic characteristics, such as being single, shape patterns of Internet use, and are related to the greater propensity of some individuals to make online social relationships (di Gennaro and Dutton 2007) However,

experience with the Internet and the ways in which people choose to use the Internet, such as for chatting or communicating more generally, are most directly associated with who makes new connections over the Internet and who does not Also, multivariate analysis indicates that the dynamics of online friendships are driven more by the idiosyncratic digital choices made by users of the Internet, such as to participate in a social networking site, than by any mechanistic social

or technological determinism (di Gennaro and Dutton 2007) Individuals choose

to use the Internet in ways that enable them to meet others Meeting new friends

is not strongly associated with any particular social group, or with the use of the Internet per se

We have sought to extend this research beyond ‘friendship’ to a more concrete and intimate relationship by asking whether the same dynamics apply to

marriage Will individuals meet people online who they would not otherwise meet, and not only meet in person, but also develop a relationship that leads to

marriage? These questions include the following: What role has the Internet played in introducing married couples? For example, what proportion of married couples met online?

If some couples have met online, what difference has it made? Are couples that met online more diverse or more homogeneous in their geographic and

socioeconomic backgrounds compared with people who meet offline? It may be that the Internet is enabling people to meet types of individuals that they do not have access to offline Do partners who meet online meet others who are more

or less similar to them (e.g., similar interests, age)?

Alternatively, will couples who meet online and offline be significantly different from one another? Will men and women be attracted to similar characteristics to the ones they are traditionally attracted to offline? For example, will online

couples place more emphasis in emotional characteristics than physical ones?

Ever since the early days of the Internet, researchers have questioned its utility in developing and maintaining psychological healthy friendships, romantic

relationships and sexual relations Early researchers were fairly skeptical about the benefits of online relationships arguing that there were not enough indicators

in interactions through computers that could convey the complex emotions

needed to maintain intimate relationships.2 However, this thesis has been

challenged by research on computer-mediated communication, which tends to

demonstrate that, in some circumstances, intense personal relationships can be fostered online – what Walter (1996) has called ‘hyper-personal relationships’

Meeting a Future Spouse

Despite the growth of online dating services, and much anecdotal evidence of couples meeting online, there is much doubt over the frequency and vitality of online match making However, despite all the early negativity, researchers across the globe have found ample evidence that people do make friends and initiate romantic relationships in cyberspace and often these relationships

progress offline (McKenna, Green, and Gleason 2002; Whitty 2008) While we are left in little doubt that people can and do form relationships online, we know little about which role the Internet plays in intimate offline relationships

Obviously, this is important given that the Internet has become another mode of communication in many people’s everyday lives

Approach and Methods

The ‘Me, My Spouse and the Internet’ study focused on collecting basic

information about how many married people have met their partners and

identifying those who met online We explored a number of other issues, such as how married couples use the Internet within their relationships3, but this paper focuses on who meets online and how might this be reconfiguring marriages in

the network society We draw comparisons using a separate survey of recently married individuals in the United States, which collected the same information on who meets online and how they met Both surveys were conducted online

Online Survey Samples

We obtained samples of married couples through online panels in the UK and Australia and a sample of married individuals through an online panel in the US For the UK and Australia, survey organizations with online panels sampled

married individuals who were in their panels, offering a fee if they and their

spouse completed separate online questionnaires Through this process we were able to obtain probability samples of online marrieds in each country, 920

married couples in the UK, 748 couples in Australia, and 10,675 recently married individuals in the US, who used the Internet (Table 1) The UK sample was

weighted to better reflect our estimates of online married couples in the UK,

based on OxIS data on age and education We did not have comparable data to weight the Australian sample The US sample was weighted to represent

recently married US residents between 20-54 years of age only We will draw attention to the differences across these samples, but it should be kept in mind that the US sample is focused on recently married couples, and is therefore likely

to capture a larger percentage of couples with the opportunity to have met online

Table 1 Samples of Online Married Couples in the UK and Australia

Fieldwork October 2007 November 2007 November 2007

Sample Married couples

who used the internet

Married couples who used the internet

Recently married individuals who used the internet

represent recently married US residents between 20-54

The characteristics of individuals in each sample are compared in Table 2 On average, the survey sample in the UK was somewhat older (49 years v 42 years

of age), and married longer (19 v 13 years), but with fewer children (1.6 v 1.9) on average, largely due to a larger proportion of married couples in the UK not having children (24% v 18%) Given our sampling frames, it is not surprising that compared to either the UK or Australian sample, the survey sample of recently

married individuals in the US was younger (32 years), married for a much shorter period of time (10 months), and had a larger proportion of married couples

without children (52%)

Table 2 Composition of the Sample, UK, Australia, and US

Mean Length Married 19 years 13 years 10 months

The Role of the Internet in Meeting Partners

Our surveys indicate that the Internet is indeed playing a significant role in introducing couples In the UK, about 6 percent of married couples who use the

Internet have met their partners online In Australia, the percentage was higher, 9 percent saying they met their partner online For the younger, more recently married sample in the US, the percentage was even higher, with 19% of

individuals meeting their partners online (Figure 2)

Online 19.2%

Offline 80.8%

Meeting Partner Online

US

Figure 2 Did you first meet your current partner online or offline?

Online 6%

Offline

94%

Source: Me, My Spouse and the Internet Study

The largest proportion of married couples that met online is middle aged, 26 to

55 years of age (Figure 3) In Australia, the largest proportion of married couples who met online are from 26 to 35 years of age In Britain, the largest proportion is from 36 to 45 years of age, and in the US, the largest proportion is from 46 to 55 years of age This middle age group tends to reflect the larger proportion of

Meeting Partner Online Australia

Online 9%

Offline 91%

Meeting Partner Online

UK

married couples in these age brackets In contrast, analyses which examine the percentage of couples within each age group that met online, show that younger people were more likely to have met their partner online (see Figure 4) In the

UK, a fifth (21%) of married individuals between 19 and 25 years of age met their spouse online, while in Australia, this figure was even higher, one-third (34%) In the US, the largest percentage of individuals meeting online (42%) came from the age group between 26 to 35 years of age

Figure 3 Percentage of Individuals who Met Online by Age

People who met online by age

UK, Australia, and US

UK Australia US

Figure 4 Percentage of Each Age Group Who Met Online, UK, Australia

Meeting the partner online by age (**)

UK, Australia & US

Where People Meet in Cyberspace

We asked those respondents who met their spouse online whether they met their future spouse through an online dating site, in a chat room, a social networking site, on e-mail or in a variety of other online spaces In the UK, an online dating site was the most frequently mentioned, by 34 percent (Figure 5) This was followed by online chat rooms (19%) and instant messaging (18%) In Australia,

the chat room was the most frequently mentioned, by 26 percent (Figure 5), followed by either an online dating site (for 23%) or instant messaging (18%), which was similar to the UK All other locations were far less frequently cited, including social networking sites, mentioned by less than 5% The pattern in the

US was similar to that of the UK, with most people meeting through an online dating site (49%), followed by chat rooms (13%), and instant messaging (12%) There was also a large portion of people in the US sample meeting through social networking sites (12%)

Figure 5 Where People Met Their Spouse Online

Email Online community

Other Multi-Player Online game (e.g., World of Warcraft, Halo)

Social networking site (e.g., MySpace, Facebook, Bebo)

Discussion group or bulletin board

Message or comment on a personal website

Where did online couples meet?

UK, Australia & US

These age distributions and locations of meeting, suggest that the frequency of couples meeting online is likely to increase in the coming years Younger couples are more likely to meet online, and OxIS suggests that those growing up with the Internet are likely to take this medium as a more natural place to meet people, generally (Dutton & Helsper 2007) Also, social networking sites are becoming more prominent in linking people through common friends and social networks.4

So what difference will this make?

The Differences Across Those Introduced Online, or Offline: The UK Case

Given a sizeable, and possibly growing, proportion of couples that meet online, it

is critical to ask whether individuals are likely to meet people online, whom they might not meet through more traditional paths Our general hypothesis was that online media would diminish more traditional cues, such as age, and therefore enable people to initiate a relationship with someone whom they might not

otherwise even strike a conversation If this is the case, we should see significant differences between the characteristics of couples that met online, compared to those who met offline

To explore this potential, we compared UK couples on two basis attributes, age and educational background We hypothesized that couples that met online are less likely to be deterred by a person’s age difference, since this will not be as